Daniel Witt, President of the International Tax and Investment Center (Washington, D.C.), John Linder, Georgia congressman, Member of the US House of Representatives standing budget committee and Honorary Member of the Subcommittee on special budget measures, Laurence Kotlikoff, Professor of Economics, Head of Economics Faculty of Boston University, research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, have participated in the above-mentioned event.
Conference participants emphasized that "FairTax" is the conceptual name of US Congress legislation, which was presented in Ukraine as one of the models for fiscal system reform. As congressman John Linder has stated, "The FairTax idea is based on the fact that it is national tax imposed on the final sales of goods and services to consumers including government spending". Its introduction foresees amendment of natural-person income tax, business profit tax, all reductive taxes on businesses, solidarity systems contributions and property taxes. In other words, according to him, "one pays single, transparent, and understandable tax, which is quite easy to administrate". Natural persons will no longer need to complete tax returns, while legal entities will only keep books of sales taxes. He also stressed that to date the FairTax idea has been strongly supported in the United States by both natural persons and representatives of different business fields.
Serhij Teriokhin, the Chairman of Committee on Taxation and Customs Policy, has stated in his speech that "we should draw on the experience of the developed countries, which hold the strong lead over Ukraine in economic development". He´s convinced of "the need for a fiscal system reform, especially reform of the Value Added Tax which doesn´t function properly and costs of its administration exceed receipts from this tax".
S. Teriokhin has stressed that FairTax idea "is not a panacea for Ukraine and can not be used for the reform of Ukrainian fiscal system, it is only suggested for consideration with the purpose of widening of the outlook of public structures, which are involved in tax reform". Besides, national deputy holds that "without deep reforms in social sphere, especially in pension legislation and medical insurance, it´s impossible to start structural transformation in fiscal system".
National deputies of Ukraine, representatives of Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, Ministry of Finance of Ukraine and other central government bodies and local governments, representatives of public bodies, business structures, specialists and scientist invited at the conference have also participated in the discussion of the "FairTax" project presentation.